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Sandia helps break the supercomputing speed barrier 

DOE-Intel-Sandia project hits 1.06 trillion calculations per second; computer to be installed at Sandia 


By Chris Miller achieved* And a collaboration of DOE, Intel, and 

Lab News Staff Sandia did it. 

Achievement of the computing milestone of 
For years, it has been the Holy Grail of high' one trillion operations per second (one terafiops) 

performance computing. And now it has been was announced at a news conference Monday in 



FUTURE SUPERCOMPUTER — James Tomkins (9224), terafiops project manager for procurement, checks the 
latest shipment of terafiops cabinets from Intel Corp. in Oregon. The terafiops supercomputer, with a computing 
capacity of 1,8 terafiops, should be up and running at Sandia by late spring. The computer will be used by all 
three weapons labs for DQE's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative. (Photo by Randy Montoya) 


Sandia 


Vol. 48, No. 26 December 20, 1996 



Sandia National Laboratories 


LabNews 


Happier holidays for the needy 
through Sandians' generosity 

Holiday giving higher than ever this year 


By Janet Carpenter 

Lab News Staff 

Sandia employees may 
have a lot on their minds 
this holiday season — tike 
keeping their jobs or look¬ 
ing for new ones — but 
they also have thoughts 
about those who are unable to provide what oth¬ 
ers take for granted. Thanks to the compassion, 
generosity, and hard work of Sandia employees, 
Santa will be visiting more homes in the Albu¬ 
querque area this year than expected. 

At times it seems like the holidays have 
become only a commercial event. People are in a 
huny. "Gotta-have-it" expensive toy supplies run 
out early. But for some needy people in the Albu¬ 
querque area, just being able to keep a roof over 


their heads, the heat and lights on, and food on 
the table leaves no money for presents of any 
kind, let alone a “Tickle Me, Elmo" toy. 

Holiday drives abound around the Labs this 
season, and giving levels are high. Here is a 
roundup of some the Lab News learned about. 
Undoubtedly, there are others. 

Shoes for Kids giving breaks record 

For more than 40 years, Sandians have partici¬ 
pated in the annual "Shoes for Kids" campaign 
(Oct. 25 Lab News ) led this year by Lisa Polito 
(12650). So far, Sandians have contributed a record 
$9,500, including $2,000 from Lockheed Martin 
Corporation. "Sandians, I'm so proud of them," 
says Mary Nation (12650), Community Relations 
Program Manager. "In this time of uncertainty 
they're going above and beyond. Our Sandians are 
(Continued on page 6) 



Washington by DOE Secretary Hazel O'Leary, 
with a live audio link to Sandia and Intel. 

The milestone was demonstrated Dec. 11 to 
DOE and Sandia officials in Beaverton, Ore., on 
an Intel massively parallel computer developed 
under direction of DOE for the Accelerated 
Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). ASCI is a 
10-year program to move nuclear weapons design 
and maintenance 
from a test-based to a 
simulation-based 
approach. 

The achievement 
ushers in a new era in 
which high-fidelity 
3-D simulation is 
expected to enable 
scientists to reach the 
eventual goal of pre¬ 
serving a safe, secure, 
and reliable nuclear 
deterrent without 
underground testing. 

"The United 
States can now re- 


"Sandia is 
entering the 
new millen¬ 
nium with a 
wholly new 
engineering 
tool , one that 
will change the 
way we do our 
jobs." 

establish its domi¬ 
nance in this market as an innovator," O'Leary 
said. "The US has clear leadership in the business 
of ultracomputing and nobody can doubt that 
leadership.” 

"Reaching a terafiops is a significant techni¬ 
cal milestone, and I congratulate the Intel-Sandia 
team," says VP Gerry Yonas (9000). "Even more 
important, it says Sandia is entering the new 
millennium with a wholly new engineering tool, 
one that will change the way we do our jobs 
from now on. In fact [by suggesting a thousand 
models from which to choose the best one to 
(Continued on page 4) 


Realignment continues: 
Some impacts resolved, 
VSIP could resolve 
hundreds more 


It's been 17 days 
since DOE Headquar¬ 
ters announced 
approvat of Sandia's plans to eliminate as many as 
435 positions through the Workforce Realignment 
Process, and already several "impacted" employees 
have found other work within the Labs through 
cross-organizational matching, says Karen 
Gillings, Manager of Staffing Dept. 3535. 

In addition, managers who had job openings 
posted in the big, Dec. 3 "realignment posting" 
still are considering the more than 500 bids 
received from impacted employees interested in 
filling those positions. (The original posting of 
almost 200 positions had to be "rescrubbed" 
after some employees discovered that a few of 
the openings they tried to bid on no longer 
existed. The final number of bona fide openings 
as of Dec. 6:166.) Bidding for those openings 
closed Dec. 12; final selections are to be made by 
Jan. 13. 

Meanwhile hundreds of other employees in 
both impacted and nonimpacted positions are 
thought to be considering applying for the pack¬ 
age of benefits, including a minimum payment of 
$20,000, offered as part of the Voluntary Separa¬ 
tion incentive Program (VSIP). The VSIP is 
expected to resolve many more impacts toward 
Sandia’s goal of eliminating the positions without 
(Continued on page S) 




CRF's Burner Engineering Lab 
validates oil refineries' emissions 


Experiments test Japanese nuclear 
reactor containment vessels 


Q&A with NATO weapon- 
protection official Harold Smith 


New solid waste handling facility 
delivers a one-two punch at waste 









This&That 

Dear Santa - I know this is a big order and a bit late, but 
there’s something I really want for Christmas this year: for every hard¬ 
working Sandian who wants and deserves to keep working at the Labs next 
year to be able to do so. If you can swing that, I promise to quit 
whining about the red Ferrari you’ve failed to bring me for so long. 

* t * 

Stability - how sweet the sound! -It’s premature to talk much 
about this now while we’re currently in the early stages of a 
realignment and downsizing program, but Executive VP John Crawford said 
during the employee dialogue sessions several weeks back he’s hopeful 
our budget and workforce will level out in a year or so. There are no 
guarantees, of course - and we’ll still probably need to continue 
readjusting the Labs’ skills mix - but our growing reputation for 
technical excellence is a strong Sandia selling point. And wouldn't some 
stability be nice? Our VSIPed, reengineered, reorganized, restructured, 
and “re-realigned" staff sure could handle some. 

* * * 

Your shot at show biz - Old buddy Gary Shepherd (4911) desperately 
needs 15-20 volunteers to help with a “really big show” he’s producing: 
the Central New Mexico United Way Adobe Awards ceremony on Jan. 15, 
which honors major individual and corporate givers. Gary is designing 
and producing the theatrical-type ceremony. The production is made 
possible through significant contributions of goods and services from 
community organizations and caring individuals. Gary needs help with 
loading/unloading and setting up stage props, stagehand work, and more 
on Jan. 14, 15, and 16, much of it in the evenings. A theatrical 
background is helpful but isn’t required. If you can help or want more 
information, contact Gary at 845-8078 or via e-mail: gcsheph@sandia.gov. 

Sandians have long given more to United Way (through the ECP 
program) than any other local group, pledging a whopping $1,475 million 
this year (Lab News, Dec. 6). And speaking of generous Sandians, see 
Janet Carpenter's page-one story about the many holiday-season giving 
programs supported by Sandians. What a wonderful holiday tradition! 

* # * 

Holiday (voicemail) greetings — What’s the last thing to do before 
leaving Sandia for the holiday break? If you’re thoughtful and care 
about your customers, it will be to change your voicemail greeting to 
let callers know Sandia is closed Dec. 25-Jan. 1 and that you'll be back 
Jan. 2 (or whenever you plan to return). If you’re extra conscientious, 
you can even leave a number where you can be reached during the break. 

* * * 

Attention married men! - A late warning: If your main holiday gift 
to your wife plugs into an electrical outlet - especially if the gift 
cleans anything — exchange it now while there’s still time. Go trade it 
for something that shines or sparkles, and I'm NOT talking about a new 
set of dishes or cookware, guys. Now, hurry! 

Larry Perrine f845-S511, MS 0129, lgperri@sandia.gov) 


President's Holiday Message 



As we prepare for 
our annual holiday 
break, I want to thank 
each of you for your 
contributions during a 
year that has been one 
of our most successful 
ever. 

Technical inno¬ 
vations were abun¬ 
dant across the Labs 
— in research, in 



new programs, and in the many 
important projects that we carry out 
for the nation. Two results achieved 
during November and December are 
attracting national and international 
attention. Our "Z-pinch" experi¬ 
ments have shattered all records for 
X-ray outputs — 160 trillion watts. 
Similarly, Sandians working in part¬ 
nership with Intel (at its Beaverton, 
Oregon facility) have set the world 
computing speed record — one tril¬ 
lion operations per second. 

These are apt examples of the 
many great results Sandians produce 
when we partner together to achieve 
challenging goals. We all share in the 
joy of these and other accomplish¬ 
ments of this year and can take pride 
in being a part of this great laboratory. 

In this holiday season, we can 
rejoice in the contributions we have 
made to "peace on earth" and can 
look forward, after a well-earned 
pause, to the challenges and oppor¬ 
tunities of the new year. 

The knowledge that we are highly 
valued by the nation and entrusted 
with responsibilities to secure and cre¬ 
ate a better future for all Americans 
should inspire us all. I can tell you 
there is no one I would rather face these 
great challenges with than you. Thank 
you for the wonderful support you 
have given me this year, and happy 
holidays to you and your families! 





Atomic Museum adds sub-launched Trident 


Next Lab News is Jan. 17 

With various schedule changes due to 
the holiday shutdown, the next issue of 
the Sandia Lab News is Jan. 17. The final 
deadline for news and classified ads will be 
noon, Friday, Jan. 10. 


Sandia LabNews 


The National Atomic Museum added an 
important piece of the United States' nuclear 
weapons legacy Dec* 3 when a Trident I (C-4) sub¬ 
marine-launched missile arrived at the museum. 
The missile was donated by the US Navy, 

During the Cold War, submarine-launched 
nuclear weapons became an important part of the 
United States' triad of strategic nuclear defense 
capabilities: warheads could be delivered from 
manned Air Force bombers, from Air Force silo- 
based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 
and via Fleet Ballistic Missiles (FBMs) launched 
from Navy submarines. 


The earliest FBM was the Polaris, which 
became operationai in 1960, (A Poiaris is on dis¬ 
play in the museum's outdoor exhibit area.} The 
Poseidon, with its Multiple, Independently Tar¬ 
geted Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) capability, entered 
the arsenal in 1971. The Trident I (04), which 
had much greater range than its predecessors, 
was commissioned in 1981 and is currently 
deployed in Navy submarines. 

The new Trident exhibit, with its eight re- 
entry-vehicle (W76) mockups exposed, is now on 
display in the high bay's northwest corner The 
exhibit replaces the TOPAZ space nuclear reactor. 


Sandia National Laboratories 

An Equal Opportunity Employer 

http://www.sandia.gov 

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-0165 

Livermore, California 94550-0969 

Tonopah, Nevada * Nevada Test Site • Amarillo, Texas 

Sandia National Laboratories is a muitiprogrom laboratory oper¬ 
ated by Sandia Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lockheed 
Martin Corp. and a prime contractor to the US Dept. of Energy, 


Ken Frazier, Editor ....505/844-6210 

Barry Schrader, California site contact. 510/294-2447 

Lab News fax ...505/844-0645 


Published Fortnightly on Fridays by 
Employee Communications Dept, 12640, MS 0165 


LOCKHEED MAH 


, MS 0165 J 


Hi Feedback 


Q: The new internal routing envelopes do not 
have "From" above the first column on both sides , 
This will cause confusion . The sticky seal also is not 
useful after about six times , We end up throwing the 
envelopes away before the routing spaces have been 
used because the material will fall out . Suggest you 
return to string ties , They last longer , Did someone 
try to reinvent the wheel here? 

A: I was responsible for the mistake of the 
internal routing envelopes not having "From" 
above the first column on both sides and have 
fixed the artwork for future orders. The seal is 
designed to reseal 100 times, but sometimes it's 
rendered useless by coming in contact with dirt 
or lint, J have talked with Mail Service employ¬ 
ees and they would prefer to stay with the white 


envelope and work on improving the restick 
seal. We have had complaints about the brown 
string-tie government envelopes concerning dif¬ 
ficulty handling the envelopes. They tend to 
hang up on each other, i talked with quality 
control people at the Government Printing 
Office and will clarify the restick flap specifica¬ 
tions for the next order of internal routing 
envelopes. 

— Dave Barton (15102) 

^ Welcome 

New Mexico — David Fogelson (1565) 

Florida —James Walther (12660) 









SANDIA LAB NEWS • December 20, 1996 


Page 3 


US oil refineries check their burner emissions at 
Sandia's Combustion Research Facility 

Study confirms refinery industry's compliance with Clean Air Act amendments 


By Nancy Gaicia 

California Reporter 


In a prime example of DOE lab-industry collab¬ 
oration, a partnership with Sandia has potentially 
saved the oil industry millions of dollars through 
demonstrating US refineries' ability to meet new air 
quality regulations. 

Whether refineries could keep emissions below 
requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act amend¬ 
ments was unclear based on emissions measure¬ 
ments taken in the field. The regulations affect 
refineries because they burn fuel to heat crude oil 
for processing. 

The industry turned to the Burner Engineering 
Research Laboratory (BERL) at Sandia's Combustion 
Research Facility, where a team including mechanic 
cal engineer Neal Fornaciari (8366) showed that 
existing processes are sufficient to limit emission of 
189 air toxics regulated by the amendment. 

"People didn't understand where and how 
these air toxics were being formed in combustion 
processes and also how they escaped combustion 
and went up the stack/' Neal says, "What we found 
was if you operate your burner properly, these air 
toxics are not released. That's good for the refinery 
industry, because instead of needing new burners or 
after-treatment equipment, they can just focus on 
operating properly so as to not have emissions 
problems/' 

The three-year study, concluded in October, 
took place through several cooperative research and 
development agreements with the oil industry and 
other partners. Refinery industry partners joined 
through the Petroleum Environmental Research 
Forum, They were Chevron, Shell, Amoco, Texaco, 
Mobil, the Gas Research Institute, and the Southern 
California Gas Co, This group hired the Energy and 
Environmental Research Corp., which offers a field 
source testing service, to sample emissions at the 
BERL. 

51 operating conditions checked 

The project involved taking samples of 
emissions produced by 51 different operating 
conditions. 

In addition to die industrial partners, Sandia and 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) pro¬ 
vided chemical kinetics modeling to indicate how air 
toxics were being formed and burned so burner 
designs could be optimized if needed. The University 
of California, Los Angeles and Stanford University 
made reduced-scale experimental measurements. 

Using BERL provided more control over condi¬ 
tions so the measurements were repeatable and 
traceable to well-defined operating conditions, Neal 




says. Measurements 
provided insight into 
fluid mechanics and 
air toxics formation in 
the burners. Condi¬ 
tions that were varied 
during the study 
included firing rate, 
excess air, and fuel 
composition. The 
BERL burned simu¬ 
lated refinery fuel gas, 
a mixture of methane, 
propane, and hydro¬ 
gen, This gas is nor¬ 
mally produced as a 
byproduct of petro¬ 
leum processing. 

"We found out 
that refinery fuel gas is 
as clean-burning as 
natural gas," Neal says, 

"We helped show that 
as long as their burners 
are properly adjusted, 
no changes would be 
needed." 

The 1990 amend¬ 
ments are intended to 
reduce emission of 
189 substances. Any 
facility emitting more 
than 10 tons per year 
of one, or a total of 25 
tons per year of any 
combination of these 
substances, would be 
defined as a "major 
source" and required 
to implement "maxi¬ 
mum achievable con¬ 
trol technologies." If 
this required burner 
replacement, the 
expense might have 

rendered US refineries unable to compete globally, 
Neal says. 

In the project, the team looked at a few operating 
conditions in new burners that emit low oxides of 
nitrogen (a component of photochemical smog). The 
majority of measurements were taken with conven¬ 
tional process heater burners. The project required 
building a heat exchanger that simulated the time- 
temperature history in the convective section of 
process heaters. The industrial partners will now link 
the laboratory results to their field measurements. 

Of the $3 million in DOE funding for the 


HOT RESEARCH — Neal Fornaciari at the two-story-tall structure of the Combustion 
Research Facility's Burner Engineering Research Laboratory, 


California News 


three-year project, $2 million went to Sandia and 
$800,000 went to LLNL, A combination of DOE 
and industrial funding supported the other pro¬ 
gram participants. 

Besides Neal, members of Dept, 8366 working 
on the project included Peter Walsh, Lloyd Ciaytor, 
Philippe Goix, and Rodney Sepulveda. Former San- 


Gene ives retires, takes DOE Headquarters position 


Gene Ives, Director of Nuclear Weapons Pro¬ 
gram Coordination Center 5200, who retired this 
month after 40 years of service to Sandia, has 
accepted the position of Technical Director for 

Military Applications 
and Stockpile Man¬ 
agement with DOE 
in Washington. He 
will also assume the 
duties of the Deputy 
Assistant Secretary 
for that office. 

Gene's career has 
centered around 
nuclear weapons pro¬ 
grams since joining 
Sandia in 1956. He 
has been a supervisor in a weapons system divi¬ 
sion, manager of the Advanced Systems Depart¬ 
ment, and manager of the Weapon Development 
Department. In 1984 he was promoted to direc¬ 
tor of Development Testing. He transferred to 
Sandia/Califorma in 1985 to be Director of 
Weapons System Engineering, then moved to his 


present position five years ago. 

In his new post, Gene will be responsible for 
interpreting and implementing National Security 
policy for the nuclear weapons stockpile. He will 
lead and manage a Surety Office, responsible for 
policy and oversight of safety, security, and con¬ 
trol of the stockpile; a Stockpile Management 
Office, responsible for the programs to assess the 
safety and reliability of the stockpile and imple¬ 
ment needed alterations and modifications to 
the weapons; and the Office of Emergency 
Response, which includes the Nuclear Emergency 
and Search Teams (NEST) and Accident Response 
Group (ARG), 

His responsibilities will also include the 
Office for Defense Programs production facilities 
at Pantex, Kansas City (AlliedSignal), Y12 at Oak 
Ridge, and the Tritium Facility at Savannah 
River; and an office for advanced manufacturing, 
which formulates and implements the Advanced 
Development and Production Technology 
(ADaPT) initiative. 

Gene was to assume his DOE duties in Wash- 
inton on Dec. 16. 



dian Chris Edwards was also a member of the 
research team, as was John Wirdzek of Dept 8361. 

Denise Swink, DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary 
in charge of the Office of Industrial Technologies, 
calls the program an ideal example of national labo¬ 
ratory-industry collaboration. 

Adds Jim Seebold of Chevron Research and 
Technology, "The industrial CRADA partners are at 
this moment bringing good science just in time to 
the EPA industrial combustion coordinated rule- 
making process," 


Employee 



VAL PESTANAS 


death 

Val Pestanas of 
CRF H and TRL Projects 
Dept. 8346 died Dec. 3. 
She was 52 years old. 
Val was a Member of 
Technical Staff and had 
been at Sandia since 
1983. She is survived 
by one sister, Victoria 
Pestanas. A native of 
the Philippines, she 
had been a Livermore 
resident for 13 years. 











SANDIA LAB NEWS * December 20, 1996 * Page 4 


Sandia has pushed the high-performance 
computing frontiers 


Teraflops speed 

(Continued from page 1) 

build], it will revolutionize the world's approach 
to engineering." 

Jack Gibbons, the President's Science Advisor, 
equated the one-teraflops milestone to breaking 
the four-minute-mile running barrier. He said the 
computing power of the teraflops can be used for 
a variety of scientific research, from global 
weather forecasting, drug and pharmaceutical 
development, auto crash safety testing, to airplane 
design. 

Craig Barrett, chief operations officer for Intel 
Corp., noted the teraflops is composed of stan¬ 
dard computing hardware. "It uses the same micro¬ 
processors as in our standard desktop computers," 
he said. "This is a super way to have government 
and industry to cooperate in bringing about an 
achievement of this magnitude." 

The teraflops computer, now the fastest 
supercomputer in the world, is being moved in 
sections from Oregon to Sandia/New Mexico 
over the next few months. It is being installed in 
Bldg. 880 in Area 1. 

The full system will consist of 76 large com¬ 
puter cabinets, with 9,072 Pentium Pro processors 
and nearly six billion bytes of memory. It will 
cover about 1,600 square feet, enough to fill a 
moderate-sized home. The one-teraflops demon¬ 
stration was achieved using 7,264 Pentium Pro 
processors in 57 cabinets. 

The run took an hour and 20 minutes, and 
during that time, the machine performed 6.4 
quadrillion floating point calculations. 

Sandia computational scientists already are 
testing software applications that are key to 
ASCI's success on a five-cabinet system assembled 
recently in Area 4. 

Sandia a world leader 

Sandia computational scientists are world lead¬ 
ers in the development of software applications for 
massively parallel supercomputers. Sandia, Los 
Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore national labora¬ 
tories are refining existing applications and devel¬ 
oping new applications tailored to terascale com- 


Sandia has played a fundamental role in 
the brief history of high-performance comput¬ 
ing, particularly in the development of parallel 
supercomputing and its applications. 

The Labs first captured national attention 
for its work in massively parallel processing in 
March 1988 when it won two supercomputing 
prizes: the Karp Challenge for demonstrating 
unprecedented speedups using processors 
working together compared to processors run¬ 
ning separately; and the Gordon Bell Prize for 
achieving a thousandfold speedup on three 
engineering problems analyzed with 1,024 
processors working in parallel. 

Until that breakthrough by Sandia, most 
computer scientists believed using even thou¬ 
sands of processors could speed up problem¬ 
solving by no more than 50 to 100 times the 
rate of a single processor. Over the years, San¬ 
dia has demonstrated a particular expertise for 
developing mathematical methods, algo¬ 
rithms, and software required for large-scale 
parallel processing. 

Among Sandia's most notable software 


puting capabilities for ASCI. 

The new computer, which is 10 times, and in 
some applications 100 times, more powerful than 
the fastest machine used today, will have a peak 
performance capability of about 1.8 teraflops, or 
1.8 trillion floating point operations per second. 

It would take someone operating a hand-held 
calculator about 30,000 years to calculate a prob¬ 
lem the teraflops computer could compute in one 
second. 

"The outstanding applications software 
development skills of Sandia and our DOE partners 
complement Intel Corp.'s superb computer hard¬ 
ware capabilities to create a dynamic combination 
that promises to revolutionize computational sci¬ 
ence in many disciplines/' says Bill Camp, Director 
of Computational Sciences, Computer Sciences, 
and Mathematics Center 9200 at 
Sandia. 

DOE, Sandia, and Intel 
jointly announced the $55 mil¬ 
lion teraflops development con¬ 
tract in September 1995 (Lab 
News, Sept. 15, 1995). 

The computer represents the 
initial goal of ASCI, which could 
culminate in computers with 
hundreds of teraflops capabilities 
by 2005. Computers that power¬ 
ful are needed to simulate the 
complex 3-D physics involved in 
nuclear-weapon performance, 
and to accurately predict the 
degradation of nuclear weapons 
components as they age in the 
stockpile. Powerful multi tera¬ 
flops computers also will permit 
analysts to quickly run full-sys¬ 
tem 3-D simulations of complex 
accident environments, such as 
an airplane crash followed by a 
fuel fire, to predict safety against 
accidental nuclear explosions. 

"Teraflops computing and 
ASCI provides an extraordinary 
opportunity for the three 
weapons laboratories in DOE to 
work together on behalf of the 
science-based stockpile steward¬ 
ship program," says Sandia 
President and Laboratory Direc¬ 
tor C. Paul Robinson. "It is a 
very important step in shifting 
from a test-centered program 
to a computational-centered 
program," 

ASCI will integrate the 
applications codes and ever- 
increasingly powerful super¬ 
computers. Even larger 
multiteraflops machines will be 


applications developments — all of which will 
run on the teraflops and perform key ASCI 
work — are the CTH code used for computer 
modeling of high-speed impacts and the 
effects of nuclear explosions; a software pack¬ 
age called CHACO that provides the means to 
make massively parallel computers easier to 
use by facilitating the mapping process that 
distributes computations across multiple 
processors; the PRONTO code, which can cal¬ 
culate structural mechanics and applied force, 
such as the crushing of a car or airplane in a 
crash or the deformation of a weapon upon 
impact; and ALEGRA, a series of codes that 
combines shock codes, such as CTH, with 
structural analysis codes. 

Sandia's massively parallel quantum 
chemistry programs have been applied to sev¬ 
eral real-world problems in medicinal chem¬ 
istry, including studies of anticancer drugs and 
environmental carcinogens. And Sandia scien¬ 
tists have used massively parallel machines to 
create 3-D models simulating underground 
formations for the gas and oil industry. 


Domenici: Sandia breaks 
one of the 'most storied 
barriers in computing ' 

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) praised 
Sandia's progress in achieving supercom¬ 
puting speeds of one trillion calculations 
per second. 

"in reaching this milestone,” 

Domenici said in a statement issued from 
his Washington office, "Sandia's scientists 
have broken through one of the most sto¬ 
ried barriers in computing. This break¬ 
through is key to the ability of our labs, 
both Sandia and Los Alamos, to success¬ 
fully complete [their] mission to ensure 
the safety of our weapons stockpile." 

Domenici, chairman of the Senate 
Energy and Water Development Appropri¬ 
ations Subcommittee, has been a strong 
supporter of DOE'S Accelerated Scientific 
Computing Initiative (ASCI). Sandia's tera¬ 
flops Intel supercomputer is the first of 
three new supercomputers procured 
through ASCI. The others are an IBM sys¬ 
tem for Lawrence Livermore National Lab¬ 
oratory and a Silicon Graphics-Cray sys¬ 
tem for Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Domenici said these massive new 
computing capabilities were a key consid¬ 
eration in the decision to forego under¬ 
ground nuclear testing. The computing 
capability provides an alternative way to 
understand complex nuclear-weapon phe¬ 
nomena to certify the safety and reliability 
of the nuclear stockpile. 


situated at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore 
national laboratories over the next few years 
into a robust problem-solving environment by 
developing tri-lab secure high-speed networks, 
high-speed, high-capacity storage facilities, 
parallel programming tools, and data visualiza¬ 
tion tools. 

Sandia computer scientists have run 
applications on high-performance Intel 
computers over the past few years in a friendly 
competition with Japan to set computing speed 
records. Sandia/Intei and Japan continued to 
leapfrog each other's efforts until a team of sci¬ 
entists from Sandia and Intel achieved a com¬ 
puting speed of 281 gigaflops in December 1995 
by linking two Intel Paragon computers. That 
record was promptly surpassed earlier this year 
by a special-purpose Japanese system's 368 
gigaflops mark, a record which stood until this 
month's achievement of 1.06 teraflops. 



MICHAEL HANNAH (4918), systems administration manager for the 
teraflops supercomputer, checks the installation of cables in one of the 
computer's disconnect cabinets, used to separate classified and 
unclassified computational work. Eleven cabinets, including two 
disconnect cabinets, are now installed at Sandia. The system eventually 
will consist of 76 cabinets. (Photo by Randy Montoya) 







SANDIA LAB NEWS • December 20,1996 • PageS 




impacts span every Sandia location and most job 
classifications; the only classifications not 
affected are VPs, executive secretaries, and secu¬ 
rity police officers, she said. 

When asked how the VSIP incentive payment 
compared with severance pay amounts, Karen 
said each employee's severance payments would 
be different based on years of service. She referred 
employees to Sandia Laboratories Policy (SLP) 
4100, "Workforce Realignment," and SLP 4004, 
"Termination of Employment," for comparisons 
of benefits. She also cautioned that impacted 
employees who wait to be laid off have no guar¬ 
antees; their impacted peer groups might be 
resolved without involuntary separations. 

Several employees wanted to know how VSIP 
recipients' separation dates are determined. 

Karen says although April 17 is the last day a 
VSIP recipient can be on roll, and although 
employees may request a separation date on the 
VSIP request form, each employee's vice presi¬ 
dent will make the final determination about the 
separation date based on the division's business 
needs. Some vice presidents already have stated 
that, for budgetary reasons, they want VSIP recip¬ 
ients in their organizations off roll as soon as 
possible after Jan. 16. 

Will there be another VSIP next year? "The 
realignment process for matching people with 
work is a tool that is available on an ongoing 
basis," says Karen. "There's a good chance there 
will be a need to realign employees skills in FY98, 
but whether a VSIP provision will be included in 
that process is becoming increasingly uncertain as 
DOE funding for 'worker transition' continues to 
dwindle. It is Sandia's desire that such an incen¬ 
tive will not be necessary." 

Answers to many more common questions 
are available on the realignment Web site under 
the "Questions and Answers" link. The site also 
contains a "What's New” page, realignment 
resources, points of contact, details about out¬ 
placement assistance for VSIP recipients, updates 
about numbers of VSIP applications and remain¬ 
ing impacts, a spreadsheet for calculating VSIP 
withholding (Microsoft Excel required), and other 
realignment-related news and information. 


Realignment 


(Continued from page 1) 


layoffs, or "involuntary separations.” Deadline to 
apply for the VSIP is 5 p.m,, Jan. 6, the first Mon¬ 
day following the holidays. 

Still some realignment opportunities 

Several hundred Sandians attended town 
meetings at the New Mexico and California sites 
Dec. 4 and 5 to hear more about the Workforce 
Realignment Process and pose questions to Sandia 
Staffing, Benefits, and Labor Relations specialists. 
Karen Gillings in New Mexico, and Bev Kelley 
(8522) in California, briefed employees on the 
anatomy of the Workforce Realignment Process 
and this year's realignment timeline. 

During her talk, Karen emphasized that even 
after the VSIP application deadline has passed 
and qualified employees have been selected to fill 
some of the openings, impacted employees still 
may have some additional opportunities available 
to them for finding work within the Labs. 

The Weekly Bulletin (on the Internal Web 
home page under the "Hot News" icon) will con¬ 
tinue to publish new job postings based on 
staffing requisitions submitted to HR in coming 
weeks, although such postings are likely to be 
scarce, said Karen. 

A "second-wave" posting containing the job 
descriptions of non impacted employees who want 
to resign and receive VSIP benefits will be made 
available to impacted employees Jan. 14 on San¬ 
dia's Workforce Realignment Web site, she said. 
(Look for the realignment icon on Sandia's Inter¬ 
nal Web home page.) Impacted employees who see 
positions on this list that they might qualify for are 
encouraged to bid; a non impacted employee may 
be granted a VSIP if his or her departure would 
reduce the size of an impacted peer group by one. 
Bidding on this posting closes Jan. 22. 

Karen stressed that impacted employees don't 
have to wait for the second posting to identify 
nonimpacted employees interested in giving up 
their positions in favor of VSIP benefits. She 
encourages employees and managers alike to 
identify and create their own resolutions, includ¬ 
ing "multiple linkage" situations (see the Dec. 6 
Lab News), within their organizations and among 
their colleagues at Sandia, 

In addition, managers are being asked to 
examine the credentials of impacted employees 
for possible matches with current and future staff 
augmentation requisitions (requests for contrac¬ 
tor personnel); it's possible that some positions 
previously filled by staff augmentation contrac¬ 
tors may be filled by impacted Sandians. 

To be considered for such arrangements, an 
employee must enter his or her skills profile into 
Sandia's REX system (the Resumix Employment 
Expressway, formerly known as the Sandia 
Resource Profile), a skills-matching software pro¬ 
gram used by Dept. 3535 to process staff augmen¬ 


HOURS AFTER DOE Headquarters announced its approval of Sandia's workforce 
realignment plans Dec. 3, Sandia and DOE officials briefed local newspaper, TV, and 
wire service reporters, Behind the table are (from left to right) Karen Hart, DOE/AL 
industrial relations specialist; Human Resources VP Charlie Emery; Human Resources 
Director Don Bianton; and Karen Gillings, Manager of Staffing Dept. 3535. California 
Laboratory VP Tom Hunter and Pat Smith, Sandia/California Director of Human 
Resources and Site Operations, briefed the news media in Livermore. 


tation requisitions. Instructions for completing or 
updating a profile are contained in the Non repre¬ 
sented Employees Workforce Realignment Infor¬ 
mation Guide, available from managers, or via 
the "Staff Augmentation Job Opportunities" link 
on the realignment home page. Employees who 
already have updated profiles in the REX system 
need only let the REX administrator know they 
want to be considered for staff augmentation 
positions by filling out a form also on the Web 
site. (If you cannot access the Web, contact the 
REX administrator at 845-0095.) 

As positions are filled, VSIP requests are 
accepted, and impacted peer group situations are 
resolved, managers are asked to keep employees 
apprised of their status in the realignment 
process, she adds. Employees whose VSIP requests 
are approved will be notified in a memo from 
Human Resources as soon as possible after 
approval, which may occur anytime after Jan. 13. 

Employees get answers 

One concern expressed by several employees 
during the meetings' question-and-answer ses¬ 
sions was that the numbers of impacted positions 
in the technical staff ranks were higher than the 
numbers for administrative staff, even though 
Sandia management has stated it is reducing 
"overhead" costs. 

Because there are so many more technical 
staff members than 
administrative staff 
members at Sandia, 
said Karen, it may 
look like realignment 
is targeting technical 
staff based on the 
"raw numbers''; in 
terms of percentages, 
however, about 3.5 
percent of Sandia's 
technical staff posi¬ 
tions (including 
MTS, SMTS, and 
DMTS), versus 5.5 
percent of adminis¬ 
trative staff positions 
(MLS), have been 
identified as 
impacted this year. 

She reiterated 
that all impacted 
positions were iden¬ 
tified through careful 
scrutiny of the Labs' 
current and future 
business needs and 
funding outlook. The 


CHINESE DEFENSE MINISTER Cen. Chi Haotian and a delegation of Chinese military officials and diplomats 
toured Sandia/New Mexico Saturday, Dec. 14. Here Chi (left) is seen talking with Labs President C. Paul 
Robinson with the help of US interpreter Chen l-Chuan. During the six-hour visit, the delegation learned 
about the national laboratories' role in US national security, saw a variety of Sandia nonproliferation and arms 
control technologies, and toured the Cooperative Monitoring Center and Robotic Manufacturing Science and 
Engineering Laboratory. Chi met with President Clinton Dec. 9 and then embarked on a several-day tour of 
US military and research installations, including Sandia. (Photo by Walt Dickenman) 


, .... ... 

-• , \ 


Cell‘Mann speaks /an. 9 

Nobel laureate physicist Murray 
Gell-Mann will speak at Sandia on "From 
Simplicity to Complexity" on Thursday, 
Jan. 9,10:30-11:30 a.m. in the auditorium 
of Bldg. 962 in Area 4. 





SAND1A LAB NEWS • December 20, 1996 • Page 6 


Holiday drives 

(Continued from page 1) 

pretty nice folks." Although shoes are given to 
Albuquerque Public Schools students during the 
holidays, the fund is open year-round. Donations 
can be made any time to the Shoes for Kids account 
#223180 at the Credit Union. 

Security Police have more to give 

Security Police Association union members, 
pleased with their new contract and favorable 
outcome of several arbitration cases, decided to 
give something back to the community. Members 
voted to donate money from the cases to charity 
rather than putting it in the union treasury. 

"We chose to give to All Faiths Receiving 
Home, St. Martin's Hospitality Center, Casa 
Angelica, and the Women's Community Associa¬ 
tion," says Union President Duane Carr (7435). 
"We've taken money out at Christmas in the past, 
but we wanted to make it a better Christmas for 
those who need it." 

Lockheed Martin also donated $2,000. The 
holiday fund is up to $7,000; $5,000 will go 
directly to All Faiths and the rest spread around. 
The union also challenged its members to donate 
$25, $50, or $100 each to the Security Police 
Association Charity Fund (account #214710) set 
up by Ray Duran (7435) at the Sandia Laboratory 
Federal Credit Union. This money will go to 
adopt-a-family programs. Safeguards and Security 
Center 7400 employees are also contributing to 
the fund. 

Adopting families for the holidays 

Audit Center 12800 has adopted a family. Social 
Committee members Debbie Rendon (12840), 

Renae Ishmael-Roberts (12820), Daniel Borrego 
(12840), and Nathan Sommer (12840) provided 
information about a family with three children from 
St Martin's Hospitality Center. "We've had real 
good participation," says Debbie. "It's great." 

Every year Human Resources Div. 3000 has a 
Winterfest Celebration. "We are donating to 
families from the Martineztown House of Neigh¬ 
borly Service," says Laura Gartling (3525). "We 
had a party with donation boxes and collected 
15 cubic feet of all sorts of things, from toys to 
shampoo." 

Command and Control Hardware Dept. 2612 
holiday drive team members Shirley Theriot, 

Libby Green, Carl Leinheiser, Patty Trellue, and 
Jim McCoy found a family of six for the depart¬ 
ment to adopt from Martineztown and two 
elderly brothers from La Amistad Senior Citizens 
Center. "People have been really generous and 
good," says Shirley. 

The ICADS/GNT Project members from sev¬ 
eral departments in Center 6500 had a holiday 
drive led by Cindi Reyes (6523). "My mother told 
me about a family at a local elementary school 
that needed help," says Cindi. 

Giving back to the community 

The holiday drive by Information Processes 
Center 4600 and Center for Computing and 
Communications Systems 4900 was led by Gail 
Simons (4900). "We adopted two families 
through the Salvation Army," says Gail. "Most 
people are giving quite a lot; everybody's con¬ 
cerned." Gail says adopting families is more per¬ 
sonal. Sandians meet the families when they 



A PERFECT FIT, A PERFECT SMILE — An Albuquerque 
Public Schools student is fitted for shoes that prompt a 
big smile at a Kinney Shoe Store in Albuquerque last 
week. Sandians donated a record $9,500 to the annual 
Shoes for Kids campaign this season and helped needy 
families in the Albuquerque area have a better holiday 
through generous giving to holiday drives around the 
Labs. The Shoes for Kids program, led by Lisa Polito 
(12650), will be able to supply more shoes and smiles 
like the one pictured here to APS students this year. 
"We'll be able to help needy students in 13 schools 
this year," says Lisa. "Last year we served 11 schools." 

(Photos by Randy Montoya) 

deliver donations in person. 

Paula McAllister (7901) and Facilities Com¬ 
puting and Information Systems Dept. 7901 (and 
friends of 7901, says Paula) adopted a family 
from St. Martin's Hospitality Center. "We've 
gathered what the family needs plus jewelry, 
goblets, socks, toys, and clothing," says Paula. 
"It's made my Christmas and given me the 
Christmas spirit earlier this year." Any donations 
the family cannot use will be distributed to oth¬ 
ers at St. Martin’s. 

Weapons Systems Div. 2000 sponsored a blan¬ 
ket and coat drive led by Wendy Bechdel (2000) 
for the San Jose Community. They also adopted a 


New Sandia ombudsman selected 


A new ombudsman has been selected for 
Sandia/New Mexico. Don Noack brings almost 
20 years of Sandia experience and four years of 
dispute-resolution and mediation experience to 
this position. He says he welcomes the opportu¬ 
nity to meet with as many Sandia organizations 
as possible to introduce himself and the services 
of the Ombuds program. Don was most recently a 
member of Diagnostics and Target Experiments 
Dept. 9577. He can be reached at 844-2145. 

The Ombuds program, which has been in 
operation for four years, offers Sandians, contrac¬ 
tors, and students a neutral, confidential setting 
where they may take disputes or share frustra¬ 


tions, concerns, and complaints so that they may 
be resolved in a nonescalating way. Mediation, 
shuttle diplomacy, and team-building exercises 
are also a part of the program in addition to dis¬ 
pute resolution. 

Sandia's other ombuds are Wendell Jones 
(845-8301) in New Mexico and Geri Albright 
(294-2065) in California. They would appreciate 
invitations to department meetings, center meet¬ 
ings, managers’ meetings, and brown bag lunches 
to explain these services in more detail and to 
answer questions. To schedule meetings or 
appointments with any of them, call Debbie Noel 
at 844-9763. 


family from St. Martin's for the holidays. "You can 
give back to the community," says Wendy. 

The Secretarial Quality Process Council took a 
special approach to its holiday drive. "We asked 
secretaries to donate nightgowns and cologne to 
Barrett House clients," says project leader Rusty 
Wright (1314). "The women at Barrett House had 
to seek shelter from abusive relationships and are 
without the amenities that make life a little more 
bearable. We thought this would make them feel 
a little better." 

Design, Evaluation, and Test Technology 
Center 9700 has been helping Albuquerque 
Public Schools families during the holidays for 27 
years. Chuck Hurtado (9784) says they contact 
four to five schools in the valley (north and 
south). School councilors select the most needy 
families. "We concentrate on providing for the 
kids," says Chuck. The drive includes toys and 
food baskets. 

Carrie Tingley Hospital patients are the 
recipients of the goodwill of Capital and Payables 
Accounting Services Dept. 10503 and Payable 
Accounting Services Team 10503-1. "The 
response has been great," says project coordinator 
Anna Baca. "People are so excited about it that 
the drive practically handled itself." The drive 
collected toys and nonperishable food, although 
people voluntarily brought clothing. 

Two sides to every story 

Staff secretaries in Laboratories Development 
Div. 4000 led by Jackie Van Loh (4000) sponsored 
a drive to adopt a family from the Salvation 
Army. "What makes me feel good is seeing kids' 
eyes light up," says Jackie. "It's a double-edged 
feeling, though. You feel good that you can help 
and you also feel bad that these families are in 
such situations." A paper Christmas tree was 
pinned to a bulletin board with cards listing the 
family’s needs and wishes. Employees chose a 
card and provided what was asked for in addition 
to contributing canned goods and good used 
clothing. 

The Division Diversity Council (10000, 

12000, and 15000) Holiday Event is adopting a 
family of seven from the Salvation Army and 
holding a clothing drive for Barrett House. 
"People have contributed canned goods, paper 
products, and toys," says Pauline Duran (10000). 
"We have 'stickies' listing the family's needs on a 
Christmas tree for employees to select and a box 
outside the CFO room in Bldg. 802 to collect con¬ 
tributions." 

Public Relations and Communications Center 
12600 has a coat and blanket drive for the San 
Jose Awareness Council to distribute to the San 
Jose Community. The drive is led by Volunteers 
in Action (VIA) program administrator Redd 
Eakin (12650). 

"There's unprecedented giving by Sandians 
this year," says Redd. "I've never seen anything 
like it." Redd serves as the contact for employees 
to call if they’re looking for charities to con¬ 
tribute to or organizations to volunteer for during 
the holidays and all year around. Redd matches 
volunteers to agencies and serves as the Sandia 
contact for those in the community looking for 
volunteers. 

Giving lasts after the holidays 

After reading about community needs in the 
VIA newsletter, A1 Lujan, Video Services Dept. 
12614, called Redd to find a needy family for his 
family to adopt for the holidays. "Even if we 
weren't able to do it we’d find a way to help," 
says Al. "The family we're helping is in a real sad 
situation, a single mother with four boys who 
didn't even have coats for the winter and they 
live in a converted garage." 

The family was grateful for the tree Al deliv¬ 
ered to them and they were surprised by the 
lights and ornaments that came with it. "They 
were happy just to have a tree," says Al. He 
asked the mother what else they could do for 
them and decided he and his family would con¬ 
tinue to help them even after the holidays were 
over. 

"If 1 hadn't read the VIA newsletter, I might 
not have adopted a family for the holidays," says 
Al. "It makes a difference when information 
about community needs is provided through this 
newsletter." 



SAND!A LAB NEWS • December 20, 1996 • Page 7 


Japanese industry turns to Sandia to test nuclear 
reactor containment building safety 


By Bill Murphy 

Lab News Staff 

It didn't go bang; it went whoosh* And it did 
so right on cue. 

Engineers from International Nuclear Safety 
Dept 6403 last week demonstrated that a one- 
tenth scale model of the steel containment vessel 
used in Mark II-class commercial reactors can 
withstand pressures significantly higher than 
they are designed for. 

The test, conducted in a specially designed 
concrete fragment barrier, showed that the 19- 
foot-higb scale model, built at Hitachi Works in 
Japan, withstood pressures of almost 700 pounds 
per square inch (psi) before springing a leak, six 
times its scaled design basis of about 112 psi* 

Even more significant, says project manager 
Mike Hessheimer (6403), the tests served as real- 
world validation of Sandia's computer models of 
the vessel's behavior under pressure* Sandia's 
model had predicted that when the vessel was 
pumped up with nitrogen, it would fail at 652 psi; 
the actual failure occurred at 676 psi, developing 
a leak and tearing adjacent to the thickened insert 
plate surrounding the equipment hatch. 

The test, the culmination of three years of 
meticulous preparation, was done under a $22 
million, multiyear contract for the Nuclear Regu¬ 
latory Commission (NRC) and the Nuclear Power 
Engineering Corporation (NUPEC) of Japan. 

"The goal of the NRC with this program/ 1 
says Mike, "is to improve the analytical capabili¬ 
ties of the US nuclear industry and to increase our 
confidence in analytical tools*" 

NUPEC was interested in the modeling vali¬ 
dation, too, but also wanted a real-world demon¬ 
stration of the robustness of steel containment 
vessels, Mike says. Containment structures are 
designed to isolate nuclear reactors from the sur¬ 
rounding environment and to safely contain radi¬ 
ation in the event of a reactor accident. As such, 
the reactor industry has an understandable inter¬ 
est in showing the public that the vessels are 
more than capable of performing their functions. 
The Mark II boiling water reactor on which the 
containment vessel model was based is a com¬ 
mon reactor design in both the US and Japan* 

Both NRC and NUPEC, Mike says, were very 
pleased with the test results* 

The Sandia tests are a continuation of an on¬ 
going NRC program to study the ultimate capabil¬ 
ity of containment structures. Over the past two 
decades, Sandia and the NRC have collaborated 
on a number of similar tests. During the course of 
those efforts, Sandia has gained significant exper¬ 
tise in the testing and analysis of containment 
structures* That expertise led to the collaboration 
between the NRC and NUPEC and the continua- 



Fun & Games 


Tennis — Sandia employees and retirees and 
their families and friends played in the Coronado 
Club Round Robin Tennis Tournament Nov. 2 at 
the Coronado Club tennis courts. Here are the 
results: Men's doubles 3.0-3.5 ranking— First 
place, David Sealey (7437) and Barry Schwartz 
(7500); second place, Elliot Schwartz and Jesse 
Herron; Men's doubles 4.0-4.5 ranking — First 
place, Barry Schwartz and John Wolfe (5921); sec¬ 
ond place, Roy Palmer (4918) and Wendel Archer 
(1251); Women's doubles — First place, Ruth 
Tillerson and Julie See; second place, Andrea 
Schunk and Linda Slutz; Mixed doubles — First 
place, Glenna Hickman (3535) and Wendel Archer; 
second place, Fred Cericola (ret*) and Sara Cericola. 



To Michelle Aquino and Gus Potter (7578), 
married in Albuquerque, Oct. 19. 



tion of the research 
program at Sandia, 

Mike says. 

The steel con¬ 
tainment vessel test 
was just the first of 
two tests in the 
NRC/NUPEC series. 

In January, construc¬ 
tion will begin on a 
mammoth V^scale 
version of a pre¬ 
stressed concrete con¬ 
tainment building 
near Sandia's Solar 
Tower. When it is 
built, the scale model 
will stand more than 
60 feet tall and 40 
feet wide, dominating 
the surrounding land¬ 
scape. The model is 
based on contain¬ 
ment structures for 
pressurized water 
reactors, which are 
used in both Japan 
and the US. 

In a series of tests 
similar to those con¬ 
ducted on the steel 
containment model, 

Sandia researchers 
will build up to a 
final pressurization- 
to-failure test near 
the end of 1999. 

Because of the size of 
the prestressed con¬ 
crete model, it is not 
feasible to erect it 
within a fragment 
barrier. Instead, the 
model will be built at 
the center of a 2,000- 
foot-radius safe zone. 

While a catastrophic, 
explosive failure is a 
remote possibility, researchers do not believe it is 
likely. Concrete, they note, is more likely to crack 
and vent out its pressure rather than violently 
explode. 

Although the test series is specifically aimed 
at the nuclear industry, Mike says that even engi¬ 
neers working outside the nuclear energy field 


HANDLING THE PRESSURE — Sandia engineers Mike Hessheimer, left, and Vincent 
Luk, both of International Nuclear Safety Dept. 6403, check out a scale model of a 
nuclear reactor steel containment vessel prior to a major pressurization test last 
week. Mike and Vince are part of a Sandia team that is conducting a series of con¬ 
tainment-vessel tests for the US Nuclear Regulatory Agency and the Nuclear Power 
Engineering Corporation of Japan* (Photo by Mark Poulsen) 

will find much of interest in the test results* 

"The data we collect will help improve mod¬ 
eling techniques for steel and concrete structures 
for severe loads," he says. "The tests we are doing 
on the prestressing system is of interest to 
researchers looking at prestressing for bridges and 
other structures/' 


Sandia News Briefs 

Sandia-nominated university researchers win DOE-DP awards 

Sandia university researcher nominees Steven Ceccio from the University of Michigan (Sandia spon¬ 
sor, Tim O'Hern, 9111) and Richard Cairncross from the University of Delaware (Sandia sponsor Randy 
Schunk, 9111) have been chosen for the DOE Defense Programs Young Scientist and Engineer Awards. 
Both were invited to a Dec. 16 DOE Defense Programs award ceremony at DOE Headquarters in Washing¬ 
ton, where they will receive an award from DOE'S Vic Reis. Nominations for this award are based on the 
candidates' contributions to the DOE national security mission through collaborative research with the 
DP national labs. Richard Cairncross has also won a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and 
Engineers. The Presidential Award is the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding 
scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. The Presidential Award was to be presented 
to Richard by President Clinton or Vice President Gore. 

Sandia Lab Federal Credit Union earns 'number one ' ranking 

Sandia Laboratory Federal Credit Union (SLFCU) has been recognized as number one in the US in 
return-to-members among credit unions with more than $250 million in assets. In a study, Washington- 
based financial consultants Callahan & Associates, Inc. did calculations and rankings on 16 different mea¬ 
sures of value to credit union members. Some of those measures include: rates for borrowers and yields for 
savers; low or no fees; and member usage of different products and services. Callahan looked at the divi¬ 
dend/income ratio (what portion of income is paid back to members) and the loan/share ratio (how well 
savings are converted back into loans to members) and other key measures of performance. Of the approx¬ 
imately 220 credit unions with more than $250 million in assets, SLFCU ranked number one. SLFCU, 
established In 1948 when Sandia was still the "Z-Division/' is a financial cooperative, founded and 
directed by volunteers (they're currently all Sandia employees or retirees). The credit union is open to all 
current and former Sandia employees and members of their families. 




SAND!A LAB NEWS * December 20, 1996 * Page 8 



GET A MOVE ON — Josue Gonzalez, a contractor with Waste Management of New Mexico, lnc„ moves compacted, bundled trash from the conveyor system to the 
loading dock. 


Photos by Randy Montoya Trash Majal: Sandia's new trash facility 



features state-of-the-art equipment 

With the opening of the new Solid Waste Transfer Facility, Sandia has taken a 
major step forward in its efforts to properly manage solid waste while increasing 
recycling at the Labs. 

The “Trash Majal", as some waste management wags call it, is bringing state-of- 
the-art equipment to the job of managing and recycling solid waste. At the same 
time, the facility's special capabilities make it possible to reduce the volume of solid 
waste that cannot be recycled and must be sent to an off-site landfill. 

Because the Labs: 1) earns money for the paper and cardboard it recycles and 2) 
pays by volume for solid waste it must deposit in landfills, the facility is giving San¬ 
dia a neat, new one-two punch in handling trash more efficiently than ever, 
according to facility manager Gabe King (7577), 

The primary function of the transfer facility is to screen incoming waste for 
hazardous or prohibited materials before it is sent off-site for disposal, Gabe says. 
The secondary function is to act as the Labs' recycling center. In addition to han¬ 
dling waste and recyclable material from Sandia, the Trash Majal also accepts recy¬ 
clable materials from Los Alamos National Labs and local DOE offices. 

(Con tinued on page 12) 



CHECKING 'EM OUT — Peter Santa Maria, a contractor with Waste Management OVER THE TOP — josue Gonzalez loads cardboard boxes into the Solid Waste Transfer 
of New Mexico, Inc., which manages the solid waste facility for Sandia, looks over Facility's state-of-the-art conveyor/compactor system. A neat, densely packed one-ton bun- 
some of the 250 recycling totes that will be distributed throughout the Labs. die of recyclable material comes out at the other end. 






SANDIA LAB NEWS • December 20, 1996 • Page 9 


Harold Smith's goodbye: NATO weapons-protection 
chairman lauds Sandia-designed vaults, technology 


More than 35 members of NATO (North Atlantic 
Treaty Organization) and other US agencies visited Sam 
dia recently for a meeting of the NATO Senior Level 
Weapons Protection Group (SLWPG). (Los Alamos 
National Laboratory and the Defense Special Weapons 
Agency also hosted part of the SLWPG meeting.) Sandia 
has been involved with this NATO group since the early 
1980s, providing technical support and general oversight 
and sponsoring several SLWPG meetings at the Labs. 
This association has enhanced Sandia's involvement 
with other NA TO groups and helped ensure the security 
of nuclear weapons in NATO . 

John Kane of Weapons and CIS Security Program 
Office 5806 — a long-time advisor to the SLWPG delega¬ 
tion — coordinated the four days of meetings and demon¬ 
strations. These included presentations on integrated pro¬ 
tection and surveillance of nuclear materials by Tom 
Sellers (5300), activated denial for weapon security by 
Steve Scott and Tom Goolsby (5511), the safe secure 
transport vehicle by Joe Roesch (5513), future 
detection/assessment technology by Dan Pritchard (5838), 
entry-control technologies by Frank Bouchier aiui Dave 
Hannum (5848), NATO security system assessment by 
Byron Gardner (5845), and robotics in physical security 
by Dave Hayward and Dan Poetz (5516). Susie Yoder 
(5806) handled the many administrative details associ¬ 
ated with the conference. 

During the visit, Bruce Hawkinson of the Lab News 
anil Theresa Bourne (5804) met with the SLWPG Chair¬ 
man, Harold Smith, Jr., Assistant to the Secretary of 
Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Pro¬ 
grams. Following are highlights from that interview. 

LN: Your title used to be Assistant to the Secretary 
of Defense for Atomic Energy? But it's now nuclear, bio¬ 
logical, and chemical? 

Smith: Yes. Congress made that decision 
because the responsibilities of the office have 
increased. 

LN: How has the mission of SLWPG changed since 
you took over as chairman in 1993? 

Smith: If you go back to the beginning of 
SLWPG, about 1982, you think of the large number 
of weapons that were in Europe under NATO con¬ 
trol, the different types of weapons that were avail¬ 
able, the number of different bases. Then compare 
it today where there soon will be only one type of 
weapon stored on a very small number of bases and, 
most important, stored in the Sandia-designed 
vaults. 

LN: Underground storage vaults? 

Smith: That's correct. That makes them enor¬ 
mously safe. So the progress we have made from '82 
to '96 is truly extraordinary. The progress over the 
last four years built, of course, on the past. What we 
have done is successfully implement the vault stor¬ 
age, and we have also implemented the so-called 
ETMs, or training munitions, which in an earlier 
day we would have called dummies. But these are 
not dummies. These faithfully reproduce the physi¬ 
cal and electronic capabilities of the weapons and, 
therefore, allow us to train without exposing them 
to any kind of accidents. So there is no question 
that we have an easier job today than we did then. 
And there's no question but that the weapons are 
far, far safer today than they ever were in the past. 

LN: But at the same time, the responsibility is 
higher. We are now trying to protect the free world with 
far fewer weapons, every one of those has to work, and 
they have to be protected. 

Smith: I think we have more than enough 
weapons to protect NATO. 

LN: So has the mission of SLWPG shifted since you 
took over, or is it going to stay about where it is — 
depending on, of course, anything like START 2 anns 
limitation? 

Smith: The threat has changed radically. After 
all, the former Soviet Union is exactly that: the for¬ 
mer Soviet Union. We're not targeting each other, 
so that particular threat we can honestly say has 
approached a minimum. But there are very key ele¬ 
ments that we are still very worried about, such as 
terrorists, who might try to embarrass us at any one 
of the bases where we have weapons. So as long as 
we want to keep nuclear weapons part of the NATO 
arsenal, we cannot tolerate any kind of embarrass¬ 
ment, intrusion, or worse yet the stealing of a 



HAROLD SMITH 


weapon — which is I think extremely unlikely, 
again thanks to the vaults that Sandia built. 

LN: You are concerned about the small possibility 
of terrorists taking over a base where nuclear weapons 
are stored. Are you aware of anything we're doing to 
counter that threat? 

Smith: We have enormous intelligence net¬ 
works and, of course, the bases themselves are 
exactly that — they're military bases. So I am not 
very concerned about that. We arrange for small 
forces to be there almost instantly; slightly larger 
forces follow; and even larger forces, if necessary, 
are deployed after that. All this makes sense thanks 
to the difficulty that even a fairly significant force 
would have in getting into the primary aircraft shel¬ 
ters or actually the vaults inside those shelters. It 
strikes me as a very small probability. 

LN: Do you think that the proposed expansion of 
NATO is going to change the task that we have tradi¬ 
tionally set for NATO and SLWPG? 

Smith: We have no plans to change the basing 
whatsoever. Therefore, the mission of SLWPG will 
remain unchanged if and when NATO expands. 

LN: Let's go into questions of specific interest to San¬ 
dia. What are we doing to help SLWPG at this point? 

Smith: [Sandia President] Paul Robinson has 
already mentioned a number of times the first-class 
job Sandia did in promoting, designing, and indeed 
working with the prime contractor to install the 
vaults that are now located in a number of bases 
and inside the actual shelter where the airplanes 
that would carry those bombs are located. That's an 
enormous step forward. The now deceased, but still 
highly respected, Secretary General Manfred Werner 
was absolutely pleased with the work that had been 
done and complimented the SLWPG and, therefore, 
Sandia at meeting after meeting after meeting. His 
successor, Dr. Solana, is of the same bent, so Sandia 
can feel justly proud of the work they did. Now 
your work doesn't end there, of course. You are the 
world experts in access control, so we turn to San¬ 
dia. In fact, Sandia is always represented at every 
meeting of the SLWPG, not only to tell us what 
technologies are available here, but also to learn 
what technologies are needed. So it's both a push 
and a pull in the association, and it's been a very 
fruitful relationship. 

LN: So does SLWPG really need Sandia as much as 
it once did? 

Smith: I think the idea that all the work is done is 
foolhardy in a world that still has tens of thousands of 
nuclear weapons, not to mention a number of states 
and substates that would like to have nuclear 
weapons. So many of the things that you're working 
on interest SLWPG, such as detection of contraband 
material. By no means is the association between 
SLWPG and Sandia coming to an end. 

LN: What are the priorities within SLWPG in the 
Safeguards and Security arena? 

Smith: Areas that we want to really concentrate 
on are, of course, maintaining the high security that 
will be in force as soon as all the vaults are in place. 
And that is only months away. Then, we want to 
make sure, as we further reduce the number of 
weapons in NATO, that the vaults will be moth¬ 


balled in such a way that if we choose to go back 
into those bases we can do it. We also want to make 
sure that training with the ETMs is done as effec¬ 
tively as possible. Sandia has done a very good job 
in modeling and designing exercises by which we 
see whether small teams of rogue outfits could, in 
fact, be successful in an attempt. The computer base 
that you've built up and the advice that you give is 
an ever-growing and ever-more-valuable tool, 
thanks in part to the computer skills that you have 
and your recognized reputation in modeling such 
events. Communications in nuclear matters have to 
be done with great care. Sandia is not without a lot 
of skills there as well. Intrusion devices, particularly 
relating to intruders that are carrying explosives, 
represent another field that is of importance to 
NATO and to SLWPG and where you also have a 
reputation and a good one. I could go on, but those 
are really the highlights. 

LN: What threat do you see as represented by your 
very title? Nuclear is one thing, but what about biological 
and chetnical? Does that in any way relate to SL WPG or 
is that another of the hats that you wear? 

Smith: The answer is both. The biological and 
chemical refers to other parts of what really is a very 
rewarding portfolio. But it also has direct applica¬ 
tion to SLWPG. After all, one of the threats we 
really have to consider seriously is the use of chemi¬ 
cal agents to attack a base. 

LN: Which could mean that the group that was 
going to hold terrorists off for ten minutes is dead or 
incapacitated? 

Smith: Exactly. So we are considering such 
threats, and SLWPG is the mentor because, again, 
the safety and security of the weapons is the ques¬ 
tion in hand. 

LN: In another of your roles, as the head of the 
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, what do you 
think are the major accomplishments? 

Smith: I really appreciate the question. General 
Lajoie, who manages the Nuclear Cooperative 
Threat Program in my office, has now obligated 
over a billion dollars. And contrary to what Senator 
Evert Dirkson said — a billion here, a billion there, 
and pretty soon it adds up to real money — it turns 
out a billion dollars buys an enormous amount of 
dismantlement of former adversaries. I have 
recently been giving a series of talks in San Fran¬ 
cisco and in Europe. I show slides that would water 
the eyes of anyone who lived through the Cold 
War. There are photographs of missiles without 
warheads, missiles coming out of silos, silos being 
destroyed, sunflowers being planted on the rehabili¬ 
tated land on which the silos stood, ballistic missile 
submarines being cut up, and on and on and on. It 
is truly a very rewarding program that has made 
enormous strides over the past three and a half 
years, something in which this administration can 
truly take great pride. Furthermore, to make sure 
that the praise is correctly distributed, Congress rec¬ 
ognizes the importance of this program and, there¬ 
fore, funded it in Fiscal Year 97 at the full amount 
for which we asked and then added nearly $100 
million more with additional tasks. I think the Con¬ 
gress clearly recognizes that this is a nonpartisan, 
highly successful program that really is leading to 
an increase in national security literally all over the 
world. It certainly is for the Americans. 

LN: And what role did you play personally? Were 
you heading up that entire program? 

Smith: 1 did the most important thing a man¬ 
ager is supposed to do. I hired General Lajoie who 
reports to me and so, of course, I set the guidelines 
and I have overall direction and responsibility. I 
then report to my superior, Under Secretary 
Kaminski, and through him to Secretary Perry. It's 
been a major team effort. 

LN: And you're saying goodbye to SLWPG and 
Sandia, at least wearing this partiadar hat, I under¬ 
stand? 

Smith: Well, the point here is that I am a politi¬ 
cal appointee... .I'm simply enjoying what I'm doing 
immensely. I will let the future turn the probabilities 
into facts, and then I'll make my decision. 

LN: There is life in the outside world as well. 

Smith: So I'm told. 



SANDIA LAB NEWS * December 20, 1996 


Mileposts 

December 1996 


Alfred Foster 


Wendell Jones 


Charles Nelson 


Estelle Mackenzie 


Nancy Dytzel 


Steve Stronach 

Michael Mazarakis 

Janet Bauerle 


Terry Leighley 

20 


25 9753 

15 9531 

20 21 

2 

1 35 


Robert Barton 

Christopher Kureczko 

Earl Rush 


Rudy Jungst 

Dixie Harvey 


Wayne Einfeld 

20 10221 

15 2645 

30 

6215 

20 152 

2 15 1 

8 

11 20 





■ppi 

i _ - ^ - -_ 




Student with perfect SATs spends afternoons at Sandia 



PERFECTION — Sandia High School senior and Sandia student intern Roy Stogner 
tweaks C-code for a ground station data analysis system maintained by Testers and 
Experimental Ground Stations Dept. 5715. Roy was one of just 500 students nation¬ 
wide to earn a perfect combined score of 1600 on this year's SAT tests. 


Sandians like to think of them¬ 
selves as brothers and sisters under 
the skin of the residents of Lake 
Woebegone: you know, that mythi¬ 
cal place where every child is above 
average. In such an environment, 
it's not easy to distinguish yourself 
based on academic achievement 
However, that's exactly what high 
school student intern Roy Stogner 
has done. 

The Sandia High School senior, 
who works about 20 hours a week 
with Dan Krai in Testers and Experi¬ 
mental Ground Stations Dept. 5715, 
made local headlines recently as 
one of fewer than 500 students 
nationwide who earned perfect 
scores on this year's SATs. More 
than one million juniors and 
seniors took the test; the average 
combined verbal/math score 1$ 
about 1100, compared to Roy's per¬ 
fect 1600. Scores above 1400 are 
considered exceptional. 

As a Sandia intern, Roy is 
updating and cleaning up the com¬ 
puter code (C-language) associated with a ground 
station data analysis system maintained by the 
department, 

"He's generally making the software more 
robust," says Dan of Roy's work, Dan says Roy is 


self-motivated in his work. "He's not someone 
you have to worry about," Dan says. 

Although he's a very bright student, Roy is 
modest; Dan learned about Roy's SAT triumph on 
the evening news. 


"Channel 7 had called him 
here [at the lab] earlier that day," 
Dan says, "I thought they just 
wanted to talk to him as sort of 
representative of a typical high 
school intern. He never said a 
word to us about his SAT scores." 

Although Roy is doing com¬ 
puter programming at Sandia, he 
says he "definitely" doesn't want to 
be a progra mmer when he finishes 
school. His interests now run to 
engineering with an aerospace bent. 

In his spare time, Roy, who did 
an internship with the Albuquerque 
Tribune , writes science fiction. He 
calls it a hobby, but he's serious 
enough about it to have gathered 
"a wonderful collection of rejection 
letters" for his submissions. 

Roy says he has not yet 
decided on a college but has appli¬ 
cations pending at MIT, Cal Tech, 
Rensselaer, and other top-flight 
schools. 

Based on his SAT scores, does 
Roy think of himself as one of the 
500 smartest high school seniors in the country? 

"I like to," he says. "But then, I do enough 
stupid things to make me wonder, to bring me 
down to earth." 

— Bi7i Murphy 






SAND tA LAB NEWS * December 20, 1996 * Page 11 


Sandia ... Sandia ... Sandia ... Sandia _. 

Classified Ads Classified Ads Classified Ads Classified 


MISCELLANEOUS 


j OGG ER/ STROLLER, lightweight, w/large 
wheels & canopy, neon yellow, like 
new, $99. Srsneros, 296-7823- 

PLAYHOUSE; toddler bed; Xmas tree; 
blue lamp; butcher block table; 
culvert 18" x 20' (ft.); metal dis¬ 
play shelving. Bentz, 857-0728, 

COUCH, $75; recliner, $25; Sears 
fawn mower, $30; end table, $15; 
corner shelves, $20; lamps, $10. 
Barham, 293-2412. 

FULL-SIZE BED & box spring, 1 yr. 
old, $250 080; woman's ski 
boots, size 6-172-7, worn twice, 
$150 QBO. Clement, 837-2683. 

BUNK BEDS, w/mattress & bookcase 
headboards, maple finish, $1 75. 
Strong, 828-0550, 

LAB MIX, black 8r white, 1 yr. old, 
very sweet fit smart, needs big 
yard to run. Simms, 256-7257. 

ROWING MACHINE, Precor Model 
M6.2, w/electronic module & ele¬ 
vation adjustment, used very little, 
w/owners manual, will bring to 
you, $65 OBO. Zaorski, 281-9194. 

COUCH/HI DE-A-BED, green Nau- 
gahyde, $20; weight-lifting bench 
& weights, $60; gerbil pen, $10. 
McGee, 857-0661. 

YAMAHA STEREO RECEIVER RX-330, 40 
watts per channel, 16-station preset 
tuning, CD direct switch, bass exten¬ 
sion, $75 OBO. Anderson, 897-2772. 

MODEMS, Megahertz X|2288 mo¬ 
dem PC card, up to 28.8kbps, 

SI 50; IBM Easy Options PC Card, 
14,4kbps, $50. David, 298-0703. 

UPRIGHT PIANO, Yamaha Ul, satin 
walnut finish, quality instrument, 
priced at $5,000 for a special per¬ 
son. Ray, 294-7720. 

SONY MULTICHANNEL TV SOUND 
ADAPTOR, for stereo or bilingual 
transmissions from your TV, $25. 
Robbins, 823-2492. 

KITTENS, free to good home, 2 
months old. Smith, 294-9830. 

DP ROW MACHINE, good condition, 
$35; need treadmill for Christmas. 
Atencio, 867-3786, 

FOUR SNOW TIRES, Wild Country Ra¬ 
dial RVT by Cooper Tire, mud & 
snow rated w/studs installed, 
245/75R16, approx. 5,000 miles, 
$60 ea. Olmsted, 823-9610. 

3-PIECE SECTIONAL COUCH, suede 
leather, ivory, $350 OBO; crib, 
glider-chair, cherry wood, mat¬ 
tress, & accessories, $450/both 
OBO. Pollock, 8277474. 

COLLECTORS: Hitachi 4-head VCR, 
Model #VT-18A, instructions, re¬ 
mote, approx. 18 yrs. old, fine 
condition, $75. Duvall, 881-4406. 

FOUR-HORSE TRAILER, covered, stock 
type, w/ramp, bumper hitch, new 
floor, great shape, $2,500. Rider, 
281-1121. 

PIANO, older spinet, w/bench, keys & 
hammers need repair, all wood, 
$100, Lindsey, 291-5485. 

KING WATERBED, no frame, $25; 
treadle sewing machine, $125; 
butcher-block dining table, $100; 

2 dressers. Sessions, 889-3364. 

TRUNDLE BED, Sc an din avian-style, 
white, $75; Graco "Buggy'' 
stroller, $20. Garcia, 298-9554. 

SOFA, blue striped w/oak wood trim, 
excellent condition, sturdy con¬ 
struction, need more room, $250 
OBO. WITson, 293-2228, 

THULE LOAD BAR & MOUNTING KIT, 
fits jeep, Isuzu & Honda sport util¬ 
ities, new, $120 ('94), $85. Heise, 
275-0099. 

DESTINATION SUITBAG, heavy, high 
quality, blue nyfon, used 3 times, 
paid $149, $80 firm. Freshour, 
256-9168, after 6 p.m. 

FURNITURE: couch, $300; matching 
loveseat, $200; bench press/weights 
(bar missing), $25; make offer. Hen¬ 
derson, 294-0731, ask for Carole. 

GERMAN SHEPARD HUSKY MIX, free 
to good home, needs yard to run & 
play, 5 yrs. old. Chavez, 344-6159. 

CEO TRACKER SOFT TOP, $150 OBO. 
Lucero, 255-9649. 

SWIVEL CHAIR, off-white, bamboo arms, 
round bamboo footstool w/matc fl¬ 
ing cushion, 145. Hawley, 299-2516. 

FURNITURE, solid oak china hutch & 
cabinet, $250; kitchen table, 4 
chairs, $200; 6 oak chairs, 1150. 
Wenger, 822-1487. 

LUM IN ARIAS, last days of sale. Boy Scout 
Troop 395, will deliver, $4/dot 
$11/3 doz. Quinlan, 296-1852. 


PISTOL; High power 9mm, w/2 hi-ca¬ 
pacity magazines, blue finish, 
trigger job, $300. Montoya, 
296-4268, call before 9 p.m. 

MAC SE/30, full-portrait monitor, ex¬ 
tra HD, modem, original software, 
carrying case, original boxes, mint, 
$495. Ho, 237-2668. 

MOVING SALE, washer, dryer, couch, 
dinette set, coffee table, lamps, 
rugs, more, call for prices. Madrid, 
271-9752. 

IBM COMPUTER, 486/33MHz, TOMB 
RAM, Microsoft software, VGA 
monitor, internal fax modem, 
1350. Blankenship, 281-2257. 

WE5LO CAR DIO GLIDE, 10 settings, 
electronic speed, time, distance 8c 
calories, perfect condition, $100. 
Robbins, 292-7355. 

GOLF CLUB, Lynx Blackcat titanium 
driver, 10.5 loft, firm graphite shaft, 
w/head cover, never hit, paid $300, 
asking $200. Dwyer, 271-0741. 

MADAME ALEXANDER DOLLS, selling pri¬ 
vate collection, Anderson, 296-3352. 

LA-Z-BOY RECLINER, beautiful condi¬ 
tion, originally $550, asking $200. 
Peel, 294-1250, 

BATHTUB ENCLOSURE/SUDINC SHOW¬ 
ER DOORS, smoked glass, 58" long x 
59" high, free. Rexrolh, 890-5492. 

DRYER, white, large-capacity, 3 set¬ 
tings, $50; full-size futon sofa 
sleeper, dark wood frame, remov* 
able washable denim color cover, 
1150. Hardison, 2772838. 

DISNEY 101 DALMATIANS SLUMBER 
TENT, 45"L x 33"W x 33"H, end 
window plus entrance opening, 
cute Christmas gift, never used, 
$20, Baker, 888-1220. 

ARABIAN/SADDLEBRED N5H, 7-yr. 
gray gelding, 15.2 hands. Top 5 
Region VIII halter '96, hunter plea- 
su re, $3,000, Rive r s, 864-2335, 

FOUR WHEELS, from '91 Jeep Wraru 
gler, P215/75R15 Goodyear Wran¬ 
gler radial tires, fair condition. 
Brooks, 828-1117. 

COMPUTER, 486DX-33 CPU, mother¬ 
board, controller, desktop case, 

1MB video, 4MB RAM, needs HD & 
floppy, $150. Surstein, 275-3370, 
after 6 p.m. 

BEDSPREAD & PENDLETON BLANKET, 
new, never used, both queen-size; 
bedspread, $95; Pendleton, $80. 
Locher, 256-3406. 

ABOVE-GROUND POOL, round, 24'x 
4', accessories & deck, $500; 
Richard 5hrake Circle Y show sad¬ 
dle, 16-in., sterling silver accents, 
$1,150. Baker, 856-5069. 

HUFFY STROLLER, 2-passenger jog- 
ing stroller, 3 yrs. old, originally 
250, asking $75 OBO. Griswold, 
856-5968 

LA*Z-80Y ROCKET RECLINER, excel¬ 
lent condition, $175; dining table, 

48-in. round, extends to 72 in., 
dark pine, $150. Padilla, 884-4913. 

TWO WOOD-BURNING STOVES, long- 
burn capacity, excellent condition; 
dispatch phone. Garcia, 343-8207. 

SINGLE-USE 35MM CAMERAS & 

FILM, 27 exposures, by Argus, 
outdoor use, great Christmas gifts, 
$5 ea. Wagner, 823-9323. 

PRETZEL TINS, old, colorful, large 10- 
gallon tins w/lids, from Penn a, ex¬ 
cellent condition, $28 ea. OBO. 
Dybwad, 296-9047. 

SADDLE, 15-in., lightweight suede 
seat. Saddle King brand, great for 
women, new, never used, dark 
brown, $280. Ukena, 275-7275, 

ANTIQUE PIANO, upright, 1908 Janssen, 
$300; 1800-watt microwave, $40; 
sofa & loveseat set, country blues, 
$200 OBO. Wrlde, 2877027, 

TRAILER HITCH, Draw-Tite (box). 
Model 41116, fits Crown Victoria 
6t Grand Marquis, like new, make 
offer. Keener, 298-0892. 

TABLE LAMPS, 2 Southwestern, $30; 
rowing machine, $45; wooden 
storage box for toys/bfankets, 

$25; all in great condition. 

Moreno, 294-4268. 

BARBIE DOLLS, friends & clothing, 
approx. 200 dolls, $7 ea. or 2 for 
$12, Fenimore, 298-8052. 

REFRIGERATOR, 19CF top freezer, 
Wards, great condition, gold, 

$220. Andraka, 294-2618. 

OMEGA JUICER, Model 1000, like 
new, $100. Liguori, 256-3613. 

SUZUKI VIOLIN, 1/4-size, excellent 
condition, $195; Yamaha clarinet, 
excellent condition, $150. Aragon, 
888-3473. 


DEADLINE: Friday noon before 
week of publication unless 
changed by holiday. MAIL to 
Dept. 12640, MS 0165, FAX to 
844-0645, or bring to Bldg. 811 
lobby. You may also send ads by 
e-mail to Nancy Campanozzl (nr 
campa@sandra.gov). Questions? 
Call Nancy at 844-7522. Because 
of spate constraints, ads will be 
printed on a first-come basis. 

Ad Rules 

1. Limit 18 words, including last 
name and home phone (We 
will edit longer ads), 

2. Include organization and full 
name with the ad submission. 

3. No phone-ins. 

4. Use 8 Vj- by 11 -inch paper. 

5. Type or print ad; use accepted 
abbreviations. 

6. One ad per issue. 

7. We will not run the same ad 
more than twice. 

8. No "for rent" ads except for 
employees on temporary as¬ 
signment, 

9. No commercial ads, 

10. For active and retired Sandia ns 
and DOE employees. 

11. Housing listed for sale is avail¬ 
able without regard to race, 
creed, color, or national origin. 

12. "Work Wanted" ads limited 
to student-aged children of 
employees. 


RCA COLOR TV, 27-in,, walnut con¬ 
sole, stereo, PIP, many features, 
original cost $900, asking $300 
OBO. Bear, 8877128. 

TABLE SAW, Craftsman, cast-iron top, 
$75. Pendley, 296-0549. 

SOFA, brown, 80-in. long, $100. 
Lockwood, 298-9563. 

SUPER NINTENDO, w/4 games. Game 
Genie, SN Pro pad, $65. Flo ran, 
237-2620. 


Because of the holiday break 
the next ad deadline for the Lob 
News is noon, Friday, jan. 10. Ads 
will appear in the jan. 17 issue. 


PARAKEET, 1 yr. old, free to good 
home; ham radio HT, Icom 24-AT, 
144/440 dual band, accessories, 
$175. Kajder, 298-9353. 

ALTO SAXOPHONE, Student "Vito" sax, 
gold w/sifver keys, new pads, com¬ 
plete w/mouthpiece, unused reeds, 
black case, $250. Aguilar, 2384)567. 

SPACE HEATER, Kero-Sun Radiant 22, 
like new, $75 OBO. Coleman, 
299-8327 

RIFLES: 9mm Marlin, semi-automatic. 
Model 9, bolt action, 30.06; Rem¬ 
ington model 700; $200 for ea. 
080. Rael, 877-6858. 

FRICIDAIRE FREEZER, large, upright. 
Swltendick, 255-1003. 

'96 HOLIDAY BARBIE, stores sold out, 
have 4, $69 ea.; '95 Holiday Barbie, 
have 2, $75 ea. Padilla, 2879550. 

BEDROOM SET, 12-piece, white, 2 
twin beds, w/foundation, $370 
OBO; man's golf dubs, starter set, 
$50; stationary bike, $40. Garda, 
888-3686 

NORDICTRACK Sequoia, $350 or will 
trade for a NordkWalkfit; chest 
freezer, Wards, $60. Spires, 
275-3655. 

BOOM BOX, Sony CD/FM twin cas¬ 
sette, $75; Sony phone/answering 
machine, S15; Trimline phone, 

S5. Tucker, 869-3469. 

ROCKER, small, swivel, beige cord up¬ 
holstery, $50. Luikens, 881 -1 382. 

EARLY AMERICAN FURNITURE, maple, 
loveseat rocker, $85; platform rock¬ 
er, $45; good condition; open car- 
top carrier, $10. Horton, 883-7504. 

ELECTRONIC SOUND SEQUENCER 
(MIDI), Roland MT120s, $1,000 
OBO; 16-in. & 20-in. boys bikes; 
20-in. girls bike; $25 ea. Coleman, 
299-8321. 

FOUR AMERICAN RACING WHEELS, 
15x10, "Outlaw lls," new, $450; 4 
new Housier racing tires, 15-In., 
autocross tread, $650. Von Loh, 
877-4140. 

ANTIQUE SEWING MACHINE, w/cabi- 
net, $150; heirloom-quality nativity 
set, book, $500, asking $200; oak 
changing table, $40. Ludwig sen, 
294-7076. 


INFANT SNUGGLY CARRIER, $12; 
king bed frame, $15; boat life 
vests, $5 ea; timeshare, $1,500. 
Ludwig r 856-5111. 

EXERCISE BIKE, 320 miles, $30; freez¬ 
er, Montgomery Ward, 15 cu. ft., 
$50. Qsburn, 298-0354, 

COFFEE TABLE & END TABLE, match¬ 
ing, thick glass tops, w/shelf below, 
$100 total. Rockett, 298-2589. 

ELECTRIC DRYER, Ken more, large ca¬ 
pacity, $115. Forster, 293-7231. 

GENIE GARAGE DOOR OPENER, 1/2- 
hp, 1 transmitter, $50. Hebron, 
2872907 

TABLE, 8 chairs, oak, $800; double 
bed, w/headboard, $200; Baldwin 
Cabaret Fun machine, $500. 
Gamblin, 8278708. 


TRANSPORTATION 


'93 DODGE DAKOTA LE, extended 
cab, 2WD, 3.9L V6, 5-spd., topper, 
54K miles, new tires, very clean, 
$12,700. Brosseau, 896-3807 

'89 ISUZU PICKUP, new brakes, new 
tires, 82K miles, great condition, 
$3,600. Clement, 837-2683. 

'90 CHEV. TRUCK, 4x4, full-size, 45 K 
miles, excellent condition, CD, 
alarm, custom rims, tires, 

$11,000. Harrison, 899-0193. 

'92 VOLVO 940CU red, sunroof, leather 
seats, 76K miles, excellent condition, 
$14,500. Martinez, 286-8763. 

'85 HONDA PRELUDE, 5-spd., moon 
roof, tinted windows, excellent 
condition, 111K miles, $3,600. 
Archibeque, 899-9180. 

'90 MAZDA MPV, 6-cyl., 4x4, 103K 
miles, very dean, new transmission & 
tires, $9,500. Amundson, 866-1300. 

F 93 BMW, low mileage, metallic gray, 
leather upholstery, on-board com¬ 
puter, compact disc, excellent 
condition. Domingo, 2771105. 

'93 RANGER XLT, 4x4, extended cab, 

47 V6, 5-spd., AC, PS, PB, 80K miles, 
$10,500 OBO. Knowles, 856-5987. 

'92 HONDA ACCORD WAGON LX, 
57K miles, original owner, all 
records, 5-spd., AC, cruise, AM/FM 
cassette, PS, PB, PW, PL, PM, 
$10,500 OBO. Esherick, 299-8393. 

'81 BUICK LESASRE LTD, V8, 93K 
miles, AC, PW, PS, good condi¬ 
tion, $2,000. Hays, 836-2099. 

'89 MAZDA 82200 PICKUP TRUCK, 
extended cab, AC, AM/FM cas¬ 
sette, standard shift, good condi¬ 
tion, $4,000. Maloney, 268-9529. 

'50 MERCURY COUPE, fully restored, 
original flathead V8, national show 
car winner, must see, $28,000. 
Fraser, 28 7 2 766. 

'95 TOYOTA, 4-Runner, V6, 5-spd., 
garnet red, less than 20K miles, 
AM/FM cassette £r CD, running 
boards, grill guard, alarm; 

$25,000 firm. Smith, 275 8185 . 

'89 GRAND PR1X LE, 5-spd„ power 
everything, black w/tinted windows, 
runs well, looks good, must sell, 
$4,950 OBO. Armijo, 839-0223, ask 
for Berta. 

'94 ALTIMA 5E, 28K miles, leather, 
moon/sun roof, stereo cassette, 
below bluebook, $ 13,900. Carnes, 
344-4128. 

'88 SUBARU WAGON, AT, AC, PS, 

PW, AM/FM, new tires, low 
mileage, great condition, $5,200 
OBO. Luetters, 822-1607 

'86 CHEV. CAPRICE CLASSIC 

BROUGHAM, 74K miles, excellent 
condition, all options, $3,800. 
Magnuson, 8275330, 

'90 NISSAN PICKUP TRUCK, parting out. 
Chavez, 861-0712, ask for Kevin. 

'85 CHEV. TRUCK, 3/4-ton, body good 
shape, runs well, needs some work, 
$2,500 OBO. Coslow, 384-5070. 

75 CORVETTE, yellow, T-tops, PS, P8, 
PW, AC, tilt steering, black interi¬ 
or, 82 K miles, 350d, AT, $6,900. 
Marcht, 299-1488. 

'93 CHEV. CAPRICE CLASSIC, VS, fuel- 
injected, AT, FAC, $8,100. Martin, 
343-9719. 

'89 TOYOTA TERCEL, 3-dr., manual, 
light-blue metallic, radio, excellent 
condition, $2,950. Case, 293-5466. 

'90 NISSAN SEMTRA, 4-dr., AT, AC, 
AM/FM cassette, good condition, 
wholesale priced, $2,950 OBO. 
Garcia, 294-1719. 

'96 MAZDA PROTOGE LX, 4-dr„ AT, 
AC, power, custom wheels, tinted 
windows, bra, 5K miles, $12,495. 
Lang we II, 293-2728. 


'90 MAZDA MPV MINIVAN, 4WD, V6, 
loaded, dual air, low miles, great fam¬ 
ily car, $11,000. Brown, 2771141. 

76 FORD F250 PICKUP, supercab, 86K 
miles, PS, 4-spd., camper pkg„ 
bums unleaded, very good condi¬ 
tion, $3,500 OBO. Detry, 856-2999. 

'84 CMC 5TARCRAFT VAN, 3/4-ton # 
AT, dual AC, 305, 99K miles, 
green w/green interior, $5,000. 
Henley, 8275457. 

'85 BMW 318i, 2-dr., 5-spd., sunroof, 
PW, AM/FM, 180K miles, cham¬ 
pagne w/tan interior, $3,300 
OBO. Henley, 877-0426. 

'94 YAMAHA, 4-cyL, mileage approxi¬ 
mately 7,258, needs repairs to be 
serviceable, bids through 12/30/96, 
until 4 p.m., shown Mon.-Fri. to 4 
p.m., right to refuse bids, subject to 
prior sale, as is. 5LFCU, 237-7382. 


RECREATIONAL 

'92 CAMERON V-65 HOT AIR BAL¬ 
LOON, complete system, includ¬ 
ing fan, very low hours, excellent 
condition. Season, 293-5006. 

'80 SUZUKI GS750, new midnight- 
blue paint, Vance & Hines ex¬ 
haust. Uni air filters, new dutch, 
beautiful & fast, $1,100 OBO. 
Hahn, pager, 224-0008. 

SKI EQUIPMENT/CLOTHINC/ACCES¬ 
SORIES, for children ages 5/6, skis, 
boots, Patagonia jacket, bib, pants, 
reasonable prices. Louden, 256-3684. 

MAN'S BAUER F/3 INLINE SKATES, 
Abec-1 bearings, size 12, originally 
$120, asking $50; girl's 20-In. like- 
new bike, $20. Schofield, 292-7220. 

K2 EXTREME SKIS, size 195, w/Tymlia 
690 bindings, $250; Rossignol 
boots, size 10, used only twice, $50. 
Archibeque, pager# 969-3558, ask 
for Andy . 

TIMESHARE, Breckenridge, luxury 5- 
star 7bdr. condo, LR, DR, FP H 
washer/dryer, garage, available 
Feb. 14-21. Siegal, 8275766. 

HARD-SIDED SKI CASES, Flightmaster 
telescoping, Protrat skis & poles, 
while traveling (e.g., airline bag¬ 
gage), $20 ea, $35 both. Schkade, 
292 5126. 

ROSSfCNAL SKIS, POLES, Lang boots; 
12-spd, Bianchi bicycle; bumper 
pool table; stairstepper; misc. 
Trollinger, 268-3414, 

LQBO BASKETBALL TICKETS, excellent 
seats, Section 23, Row 35, Seats 4 
&5, Rice, 2/13; Tulsa, 2/15; $15 
ea., $60 total. Banks, 275-3800. 

SKI RACK, Barrecrafters, holds 7 pair, $40; 
Glen 190cm skis, $30; new, never 
used; woman's ski boots, AlpJna size 
10, 530. Kama, 880-1163, 


REAL ESTATE 

3-BDR. HOME, 1,283 sq. ft., 2 baths, 2- 
car garage, new carpet, quiet west- 
side neighborhood, minutes from 
W0, $99,900, Goering, 292-6611, 
ask for Randy Holman. 

3-BDR. TOWN HOME, Academy 
Ridge, 1,750 sq. ft., beautiful, red 
tile roof, new carpet/paint, great 
views. $154,900. Lee, 286-2823. 

2-BDR. 76 MOBILE HOME, 12x60, 
must sell, good condition, must 
see, $9,000 OBO. Parra, 869-3416. 


WANTED 

ELECTRIC BASS GUITAR and speaker, 
for beginning student, in time for 
Christmas. Field, 268-497 4. 

KODAK CAROUSEL SLIDE PROJEC¬ 
TOR, w/extra slide trays. Cook, 
869-6927 

SKI CLOTHES, children's sizes 10-12. 
Korbin, 299-9088. 

ROOMMATE to share South Valley 
home, w/arts admln/musidan & dog, 
seek responsible female, NS, ND, NA, 
S35Q/month, Rockett, 8774430. 

USED REFRIGERATOR, 14-16 cu. ft, 
frost-free (non frost-free would 
be fine), reasonably priced. Vigil, 
880-0026. 


LOST & FOUND 


FOUND: Texas Instalments Scientific Cal¬ 
culator. Call Tom Cutchen, 844-7008 
or Chris Tomlin, 845-8436. 






SAND1A LAB NEWS • December 20, 1996 


Page 12 


Sandia Web Watch: 

Fast track to Sandia research and technology information 


Folks who want an 
excellent summary of 
Sandia's technical work 
and facilities can visit the 
Labs' External Web site 
Research & Technology 
(R&T) Capabilities page, 
featuring our major 
research, development, 
engineering, and design 
capabilities. The site pro¬ 
vides more than 40 direct 
links to technical details about subjects ranging 
from Sandia's huge pulsed power accelerators to 

Trash Majal 

(Continued from page 8) 

Gabe says the facility is now handling about 
50,000 pounds of solid waste each week, screen¬ 
ing it for hazardous and prohibited materials and 
compacting it for transfer to an off-site landfill. 
The facility is also handling about 23,000 pounds 
of recyclable paper and 10,000 pounds of card¬ 
board each week. That volume will expand when 
the Waste Management Department distributes 
250 bright blue recycling totes and 1,000 recy¬ 
cling baskets (little cousins to the big blue totes) 
to the Labs' major paper-generating locations. 
Once the distribution is complete, the paper recy¬ 
cling cages and the yellow-taped boxes of recy¬ 
clable paper will be gone forever. 

The new system, designed to collect recy¬ 
clable paper right at the source, should result in 
cleaner, more uniform, and thus more valuable, 
recyclable material. 

Solid waste enters the transfer facility via some 
of the biggest bay doors in Albuquerque. The big 
doors, by the way, enable trash trucks to raise their 
beds high as they dump wastes at the facility. Once 
dumped in the building, all waste is screened for 


dust-speck-sized m icromach ines. 

The R&T Capabilities page is one of six 
top-level pages posted directly on Sandia's 
External Web site: http://www.sandia.gov. It 
can be found quickly by clicking on the 
Research & Technology icon at the top of that 
site or by typing in the address of the R&T 
Capabilities page: http://www.sandia.gov/capa- 
bilities/capabilities.html. 

Page owner Milt Clauser (9201) has orga¬ 
nized the 40-some R&T Capabilities into 10 
major categories: 

• Computing, Communication, & Informa¬ 
tion Science 

• Electronics 

• Energy & Environment 

• Engineering & Systems Analysis 

• Manufacturing 

• Materials, Chemistry, & Physics 

• Pulsed Power & Radiation Effects 

• Robotics & Intelligent Systems 

• Sensors & Monitoring Systems 

• Transportation Technology 

The R&T Capabilities page also links to 
detailed information about the Labs' technical 
Core Competencies and to User Facilities, which 
are available to US industrial and educational 
groups working cooperatively with Sandia. Also 
linked is Sandia's "Technology Showcase" page 
(click on "selection of Sandia's projects"), featur¬ 
ing timely and interesting technology areas. Cur¬ 
rent features include the Massively Parallel Com¬ 
puting Research Lab, Virtual Reality, and the 
Archimedes robotic assembly planning system. 
Sandia ns who develop new pages, or who have 
existing ones they believe should be listed on the 
R&T Capabilities page, should contact Milt by e- 
mail (mjclaus@sandia.gov) or phone (845-8006). 

("Sandia Web Watch" is a Lab News series 
featuring news and developments about Sandia's 
Web sites.) 

— Larry Perrine 



Coronado Club 

Dec. 20 — "Big Band Night" dinner/ 
dance. $7.95 all-you-can-eat buffet, 6-9 
p.m. Music by Westside Sound, 7-11 p.m. 

Dec. 22 — Sunday brunch buffet, 10 
a.m.-2 p.m. $6.95 all-you-can-eat buffet. 
Music by Bob Weiler, 1-4 p.m. 

Dec. 31 — New Year's Eve Party; 
$30/couple; prime rib dinner, 7-9 p.m.; 
music by Midnight Magic, 9 p.m.-l a.m. 
Check ticket availability at Club office. 

Jan. 2,9,16 — Thursday bingo night. 
Card sales and buffet start at 5 p.m., early 
birds' bingo at 6:45 p.m. 

Jan. 5 — Sunday brunch buffet, 10 
a.m.-2 p.m. Music by Bob Weiler, 1-4 p.m 
Jan. 10 — "Western Night" dinner/ 
dance. $7.95 all-you-can-eat buffet, 6-9 p.m. 
Music by Isleta Poorboys, 7-11 p.m. 

Jan. 16 — Kids bingo. Buffet 5-8 p.m.; 
bingo 7-9 p.m. 

Supervisory appointment 


DAVID PLUMMER to Manager of Electro¬ 
mechanical Engineering Dept. 2643. 

David joined Sandia in 1985 as a member of 
the Safety Components Department. He has 
. » worked in mech¬ 



anism design groups 
since coming to the 
Labs, except for a 
nine-month assign¬ 
ment as quality coor¬ 
dinator for the Ener¬ 
getic Components 
Center. 

He has a BS and 
MS in mechanical 


DAVE PLUMMER engineering, both 


from Oklahoma State 


University. David received the Sandia President's 
Quality Award in 1994 and an Employee Recogni¬ 


tion Award in 1996. 


hazardous or prohibited materials, which are 
removed. 

Paper destined for recycling is sorted accord¬ 
ing to grade. The best stuff, called "white ledger” 
in the recycling business, can bring more than 
$100 a ton; at the other end of the spectrum, so- 
called "mix paper" — unsorted paper products of 
all kinds — may bring $10 a ton on a good day. 

As Gabe says, it pays to presort waste paper at the 
source to keep the "mix" low and the "white 
ledger" high. The hope, Gabe says, is that the new 
recycling totes and baskets will help make on-site 
sorting and screening easier. 

Prohibited items 

Screening has shown that 60 to 70 per¬ 
cent of all solid waste loads received in the 
solid waste transfer facility contain haz¬ 
ardous or prohibited materials, according 
to facility manager Gabe King. These 
include any liquids, asbestos-containing 
materials, spray paint and other aerosol 
cans, solvents, cieaning solutions, lead 
acid batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, and 
a variety of other materials. Even though 
disposed items may contain just small 
amounts of solvents or other hazardous 
substances, the disposal still constitutes a 
threat to the environment and is a poten¬ 
tial violation of regulations. 

Other prohibited items include con¬ 
tainers with freon, propane cylinders, con¬ 
struction debris, classified materials 
(including classified folders), corrosive 
materials, radioactive materials, asbestos, 
and infectious waste bags (even if empty), 
and smoke detectors. Household wastes, 
brought from an individual's home and 
disposed of at Sandia, are also prohibited. 

For information about activities 
related to solid waste disposal, call Gabe 
King at 284-4032. 



YOU CAN'T HELP but look twice at this visual feast puttering around the Labs, but Steve Thoma, the truck's 
owner, says he doesn't notice people staring anymore, Steve, a contractor in Process Research Dept. 6212, 
decided to "Southwest" his 1975 Chevy pickup about five years ago. So he sprayed the exterior with pink stucco 
(the same batch he was covering his house with at the time), replaced the plastic dashboard with a wooden one, 
added a turquoise-stained grill and vigas and tile mosaics (a gecko on the cab's ceiling, a zia symbol in the bed), 
tiled the side trim, and hung a chile ristra from the rearview mirror. (The truck hasn't been "normal" for awhile; 
before the stucco it was covered with hundreds of postcards from around the world, a surface he decided was too 
high maintenance. In addition, it has run on propane since 1981.) Since the customizing, Steve and his rolling 
promotion for "Santa Fe style" have been invited to custom car shows and parades and have appeared in local 
newspapers and on TV stations around the world. A San Francisco filmaker even included the truck in a documen¬ 
tary about custom cars. Steve, also a self-taught sculptor whose work is gaining acceptance in the Chicago folk art 
market, says stucco makes a great medium . .. uh, surface. Is he worried about ruining his masterpiece in a 
fender-bender? Not realty; the truck weighs 6,000 pounds. Plus, he opines, stucco is better than fiberglass for 
body work any day. (Photo by Randy Montoya)